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42 - England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2023

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Summary

Introduction

Data on the mortality caused by the Black Death in the British Isles are only available for England. In England, as in other countries, the huge majority of the population lived in the countryside, 85% or perhaps nearly 90% gaining their livelihood from agriculture. Only a disease with exceptional powers of spread in the medieval countryside could cause such extreme mortality and tremendous diminution of the population of momentous historical significance. This was indeed the case, as stated by Ziegler: ‘the story of the Black Death in England is above all the story of its impact on the village community’. It is also the story of its impact on the village clergy, the beneficed parish priests with cure of souls.

In contrast to the plague mortality data from south-western Europe, English mortality data relate almost entirely to the countryside, to mortality among manorial populations and the rural clergy.

In his pioneering book of 1948 on English medieval demography, J.C. Russell made an estimate of the mortality in the Black Death among the tenants-in-chief, the class of noblemen that held land directly from the king. He used documents reflecting transfer of such feudal land following the possessor’s death in the epidemic. However, this material is too unrepresentative both with respect to social class and age structure to be of any use in this context. Russell’s claim that the mortality of the noble class was representative of general population mortality must be dismissed out of hand. This has been done emphatically by a number of scholars.

Source-critical problems affecting estimates of the mortality in the Black Death among parish priests

Studies on the mortality among the beneficed parish clergy are of great interest because they include thousands of persons living all over England in relatively well-known circumstances and, thus, constitute a social category suitable for meaningful statistical analysis and discussion of mortality. Their territorial distribution would by and large correspond to the distribution of England’s population and must be considered satisfactorily representative in this important respect. Nonetheless, there are many problems associated with this source material and with the studies.

First, the beneficed parish clergy are a special social category with a specific behavioural pattern, living in social and economic circumstances that generally were much better than those of the general population.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2021

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  • England
  • Ole J. Benedictow
  • Book: The Complete History of the Black Death
  • Online publication: 18 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787449312.044
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  • England
  • Ole J. Benedictow
  • Book: The Complete History of the Black Death
  • Online publication: 18 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787449312.044
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • England
  • Ole J. Benedictow
  • Book: The Complete History of the Black Death
  • Online publication: 18 January 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787449312.044
Available formats
×